Nightfall
by DaylightButterfly
Summary: "She was a burning girl, and he was a boy made of stars. They would always exist at nightfall." Bullied Kid AU, for a shipweeks prompt from several years ago. Wolflet.


**A/N: Hey guys! I wrote this a long time ago and recently stumbled across it again. Thought I'd share it with all of you. The age difference between Scarlet and Wolf is smaller in this story, and I imagine it takes place in the modern era, not the futuristic world of TLC. Please read and review, and enjoy!**

* * *

Scarlet was eight years old when he first moved to town. Taller than the other boys, with a slump to his shoulders and a mess of shaggy hair she was tempted to touch, he was an anomaly. Nobody quite knew what to make of him. The whispers began when it became known that he'd been held back a year in school.

The thing was, he probably could have beaten up any of the other kids who taunted him on the playground, stole his lunch tray in the cafeteria, and wrote nasty insults on the bathroom mirror.

But what first drew Scarlet to him was that he never, ever did.

Even at so young an age, when it would have been easy for him to swing a punch, or land a kick on one of the other boys' shins in the playground and blame it on the "game" they were playing, he never so much as glared at another soul.

A gentle giant.

She couldn't really wrap her mind around the oxymoron.

Scarlet watched him from the sidelines, a quiet mouse, as he hid day after day in the library during recess and started ditching class more than attending it. His gaze turned darker and darker, and the smiles that had so rarely lit up his face in the beginning stopped appearing altogether.

At eight years old, Scarlet didn't even know how to stand up for herself, nevertheless for a strange boy who she'd never spoken to. But watching him pick himself up hit after hit burned something like a hole in her heart.

—

Scarlet had her first interaction with him when she was nine. She was helping her grandmother unload fresh farm produce into the back storage room of one of the grocery stores when he walked by, dragging his feet behind a woman who was most likely his mother.

Scarlet watched them disappear through the front door, brimming with curiosity, until her grandmother told her to go in and ask the grocer for their payment. Inside the store, he was standing in one of the aisles, studying a can of tomatoes with far too much interest while his mother conversed with another customer.

Scarlet swallowed the nervous feeling that rose up in her throat.

"The more afraid you are, the less afraid you have to act," Grandmère always said.

As she strode by him, all confidence and false bravado, she worked up the courage to give a little wave.

To her surprise, he waved back.

—

At ten, they spoke for the first time. To be fair, it was during a class-facilitated discussion about wolves, but it was interesting, and he was interesting, and Scarlet felt like it was the start of... something.

He said he liked wolves, a lot, and because his actual name was some weird combination of "z"s and apostrophes, she started to refer to him as "Wolf" in her head.

She accidentally let the pseudonym slip to one of her friends, who told a boy who told a boy who told one of the kids who loved to hurt Wolf, and soon everyone started calling him things like "dog" and "omega" and "monster".

The guilt ate away at her, little by little.

—

At eleven, Scarlet finally decided to step forward. She hadn't been raised to be weak, she was tired of watching this gruesome game, and if there was anything she hated, it was crouching hidden and nameless on the sidelines.

On the playground during recess, while the teachers who also stood on the sidelines calmly chatted by the school door, Scarlet strode over to the group of boys throwing wood chips at Wolf and told them to stop. Grandmère's saying about fear rang through her ears.

Be brave, be brave, be brave.

It was so sick, the way they hurt and hurt and hurt and walked away with no more than warnings slipping through their ears.

They stopped.

But the next day, she was the one flinching as wood chips rained down on her fiery, unruly hair.

—

At twelve, Scarlet found it.

The place where the sun touched the Earth just before the stars awoke each night, where she could sit and just think for hours and hours in peace. It was at the edge of their small town, past the last building and beyond the road. The children, her friends turned tormenters, couldn't find her there.

It was all green fields, rolling and sweeping and stretching as far as the eye could see.

Even though Scarlet had all the green fields she could ever want on Grandmère farm, those fields were filled with boys who knew her best hiding spots among the corn, girls who laughed at her as she picked tomatoes, and a Grandmère who didn't understand why Scarlet couldn't just tell all of them to leave her alone.

"It's not that simple." Scarlet had whispered.

Grandmère didn't believe her.

"You don't understand!" Scarlet had argued, the time she'd been found crying behind the toolshed out in their farthest field.

Grandmère proceeded to tell the teachers at school about her, and then things got worse. Their teachers never knew how to handle these things; it was a small French town with straight-laced morales and nobody ever knew how to handle these things. Everyone simply called it "part of growing up" and left it at that.

Scarlet stopped going to Grandmère about any of it. She cried when she knew the older woman was out, or unavailable, or too busy worrying about their farm business to think about Scarlet.

She stopped spending so much time on the farm altogether.

That was why it was such a relief when she found it, the only place in the entire town where nobody asked questions, nobody pitied, and nobody looked; where she could just be Scarlet, and not "Firehead" or "Little Red" or any of the other names (most so bad she tried not to think about them) she was now known by.

It was a haven where she could sit and think and wonder about why she had ever decided to step in for Wolf that day all those months ago.

Sit and think and wonder.

Somehow, she couldn't bring herself to regret.

—

At twelve and two months, Wolf found it too.

Or, more specifically, he found her.

It was sunset, as it always seemed to be by the time Scarlet escaped the fiends she called her classmates and dodged Grandmère's incessant worries. She'd made her way to the little patch by the green fields at the edge of nowhere, wanting to be alone.

Except she wasn't.

Because he was there, broad frame hiding half of the sun's fire, long arms wrapped around himself, hair ragged and touching his shoulders, just as it always was. He'd turned around when Scarlet approached, as if he could sense her.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, somewhat ticked off at finding him in her spot, her corner of sitting and thinking and wondering.

He looked nervous, almost scared to meet her gaze when he replied. "Sorry. I've been following you for a couple days now, and I..." he scratched the back of his head, something Scarlet realized he did quite a bit. "I've been trying to work up the nerve to, um, talk to you."

Scarlet waited, staring.

"I, uh, never thanked you for what you did. That time on the playground. With the wood chips." He dropped his eyes from where they had been just barely meeting hers. "That was the bravest thing I've ever seen anyone do."

His voice was deep, and rough, and just a little bit scratchy, as if it was hard for him to force words out of his throat. He never talked much, even when prompted in class. This was the most Scarlet had ever heard him say.

"You're welcome, I guess." Scarlet wasn't quite sure how to answer his little impromptu gesture of gratitude. "Your thanks is about a year late, but you're still welcome."

The corner of his mouth lifted in a lopsided half-grin. A barely-there trace of a smile. It fell quickly, though, as if he'd suddenly thought of something unpleasant.

"I, uh, should probably also apologize to you." Scarlet frowned, tilting her head. He hadn't done anything wrong.

"It's my fault they're hurting you." Wolf mumbled, gaze fully meeting hers for the briefest of moments. "If you'd never stood up for me, they would have left you alone. This is all my faul-"

"Wolf, stop." Scarlet realized too late that she had used the alias she'd assigned him instead of his real name. She quickly backpedaled. "Sorry, I mean Ze'ev. I call you Wolf in my head, after that time we talked about wolves in bio a couple years ago? …That's probably weird, isn't it?"

She expected him to look insulted, or wounded, or at least angry now that he knew the origin of all of those lupine nicknames he'd been given. Instead, he was grinning. A toothy, all-wrong grin, but it still made something in her stomach jolt because, well, she didn't think she'd ever seen him smile like that before.

"Wolf," he said, eyes still bright. "I like it."

She laughed then, the sound filling the spaces and silences around them, making Scarlet think that this might just grow into something.

Friendship? Companionship? The beginning of not feeling so alone anymore?

She held out her hand to him, smiling when he, confused, took it without question.

"How about this, Wolf. You can come here to escape the other kids, too. As long as you don't bother me and expect me to be social and talk to you, I think we'll get along just fine."

Wolf was the one who pumped their joined hands in agreement. Scarlet was the one to pull away.

Then they stood there, occasionally sneaking glances at each other, as the sun finished it's descent into the hills and the stars started to fill up the sky.

—

It became a routine then, her making her way to their place after finishing up at the farm (Scarlet still had to do her chores, no matter how tense her relations with Grandmère were), and Wolf already there, waiting for her.

They talked, sometimes, but mostly they just sat, watching the wind sweep its way across the pastures and appreciating the colors that burst when the sun hid away below the horizon.

Nightfall.

That was the word Scarlet began to associate with her unlikely companion.

When she thought of him, the image that appeared in her head was of a silhouette, standing with his back towards her in their secret space, looking like a patch of darkness that only needed stars to turn into the evening sky.

It had felt like nightfall when she met him. Like everything light was falling falling falling, the golden ages of her childhood making way for growing up too fast and sticks and stones and broken bones and words that of course, couldn't help but hurt. He brought the darkness, but for some reason she didn't hate him.

Maybe she was just waiting for the stars to come out.

—

"Do you think I'm ugly?"

"No. Why?"

"Everyone calls me ugly. I just thought I'd ask."

"Oh. Um, well, if it helps, I don't think you're ugly."

"Thanks, Wolf."

"Uh, no problem."

—

At school, they quietly started falling in with each other.

He would sometimes scare away the girls who liked to follow Scarlet into the bathroom. She occasionally muttered "curses" at the boys who taunted Wolf, knowing they thought she was crazy and that her Grandmère was a witch and were afraid of her for it.

He'd scatter the little elementary-schoolers who liked to pull on Scarlet's hair in the cafeteria.

She once lent him her notebook to block the barrage of spitballs aimed at him during math.

It was a subtle, unstable defense system, the come-and-go bond formed between allies who knew they were probably only allies until the battle was over. But it felt right, somehow.

Like all the curious glances Scarlet had stole at him during grade school were finally catching up to her. Like they were always meant to be like this.

—

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Wolf, did you just start a conversation with me without me starting it first?"

"…"

"Sorry, I couldn't help it. You're just always so quiet. But, to answer your question, I was thinking I would probably take over the family farm when Grandmère…you know."

"Retires?"

"Uh, yeah. That."

"Hmm."

"What do you want to be?"

"I don't know."

"You have to have some idea. Why did you ask me if you don't even know yourself?"

"I just wanted to know about you."

"Oh please. I don't believe that. C'mon, you can tell me. What do you want to be?"

"I honestly don't know."

"A pilot? Soldier? Scholar? Oooh— what about one of those scientists who study animals? You can specialize in wolves!"

"Yeah. Hi, my name is Wolf and I'm a wolf scientist."

—

Things were getting better. Surprisingly, blessedly, strangely better. The kids at school had moved on to newer victims and they left her mostly alone now, sneaking in jabs only when it was clear no one was looking. Scarlet had also made up with her Grandmère, after a long and grueling conversation during which both of them cried at least twice and apologized twenty times more than that.

In the center of everything good, everything better, was Wolf. Scarlet hadn't realized how much she'd missed having friends, how much she'd missed knowing that somebody out there had your back and understood your flaws and accepted your weird and crazy and impossible, until Wolf slowly became somebody she considered a friend.

He was more than temporary now, she knew. More than just a partner thrown to her in the midst of war, more than a loner who sought sanctuary where she did, more than someone who entered her life with a ticking timer set for the date of his inevitable disappearance.

Because it had been over a year since he'd found her and still, inexplicably still, he hadn't left her yet.

The moment she'd stopped waiting for him to leave was the moment he'd earned her trust.

It was a funny, beautiful thing, to trust somebody besides her Grandmère.

During years thirteen and fourteen when Things Got Better, Scarlet stopped dreading waking up in the morning. She started eating breakfast at home again, rather than skipping so she could get to class early and avoid walking through school hallways filled with curses and threats. She brought her lunch to the library with Wolf, instead of hiding in the girls' bathroom.

Her grades improved. She smiled a little.

And every day, without fail, she met Wolf at what she now considered to be their own personal end of the world. They would stand and talk and watch the brilliant golden sunset make way for nightfall.

—

Wolf was funny, Scarlet realized after some time.

Funny, and quirky, and actually pretty sarcastic, which had come as a huge surprise to Scarlet when she'd first deduced that about him.

At age fifteen he still resembled the child he used to be, taller than the rest and bulky, only now, instead of shy and quiet and brooding, he talked to her almost as much as her old friends in elementary school had. He'd cut his hair, too, which made his eyes pop like green fire every time he looked at her.

His sense of humor, though. That was what she liked most about him. He had a way of spinning simple elements of conversation, or lame jokes that Scarlet tried to crack, into concepts weird enough to laugh at. Being around him was like having a warp machine to run all her words through. She'd give it something, wait a little, and smile when it churned out something more interesting for her to react to.

Wolf was also smart. He got almost perfect grades at school, even though no one ever acknowledged it.

Scarlet often found herself wondering why the best people were always the ones everyone else seemed determined to ruin.

—

When she turned fifteen, and he sixteen, Things stopped being Better.

Wolf grew distant, becoming a faraway star rather than the tangible brilliance she had come to adore.

He stopped laughing with her so much, stopped telling her things like the color of the wallpaper in the house he'd lived in before he moved to her town, or how he'd kept long hair for most of his childhood because it made him feel safer, or even just how much he loved his mother (because, and Scarlet found this interesting, he apparently really, really loved his mother).

Their easy truce at school turned tense, and sometimes he didn't show up to school at all, which made her worried.

Their evenings together appreciating the sunset became one of those silent, cold, black and white movies where no one ever felt anything. Scarlet could sense their vivid technicolor connection melting with each successive nightfall that passed by.

Then he stopped showing up in the evenings altogether.

It hurt a lot, more than Scarlet would admit to herself. Because just when she was really starting to get comfortable with having him around... there he went.

—

Wolf got into fights.

Scarlet knew this because, on the rare occasions where she did see him, he wore long-sleeved shirts and always had some sort of bruise on his face. The whispers about him started at school again, only this time they were tinged with a sort of awe; street fighters were cool to the boys, attractive to the girls. She knew people wanted to approach him, ask him about the "secret" life he led, but nobody dared.

These days, Wolf radiated "danger" like a broken vase with all of its porcelain shards sharpened to points. Even Scarlet knew enough to leave him alone.

But that didn't mean it didn't bother her, watching his eyes grow hard and unflinching, his skin marred with scars, his mouth forever twisted in a part-grimace, part-frown. The one time she tried to talk to him, he'd shaken her off as if she were a drop of water on wet fur.

Scarlet didn't know what to do. She felt like she was on the sidelines again, a spectator in Wolf's story, waiting for him to either give it all up or dive into the deep end.

She hated feeling helpless.

—

A month passed.

Then six.

It still hurt, thinking about why he'd abandoned her in the first place. She masked the pain with a veil of indifference.

She was Scarlet Benoit, bold and brash and unbreakable. What did she care if some boy (albeit one to whom she'd given her trust) didn't want to be around her?

Scarlet spent her days furiously keeping up with schoolwork, taking on more and more chores at the farm, and researching all the new agricultural technology to improve their crop yield. Her Grandmère was delighted at Scarlet's enthusiasm, but Scarlet knew the old woman could tell something was wrong.

Scarlet never said anything, though, because it was stupid for a Benoit girl to be so distraught over a boy. She had been taught to be stronger than that, and her Grandmère would think she was weak.

—

By the time a year had gone by, Scarlet decided that she had figured it all out.

It was really quite simple— she'd been a stupid, idealistic girl, duped into befriending a boy who'd had the word "disappear" written on his forehead in big black letters from the moment they'd first met.

She was done being angry with him, done being upset at herself— people moved on, and that was that.

It'd been great while it lasted, but she was simply past the point where her path intertwined with his.

—

At age seventeen, Scarlet could basically run the farm by herself, and her Grandmére began to joke (or maybe seriously think) about retiring.

She started entering competitions for scholarships, hoping to win one to a college close to home so that she could continue her education and also begin her work as the full-time owner of Benoit Farms.

Scarlet was still the outcast of the town, but petty insults and cruel nicknames didn't bother her anymore.

She had a dream, and a future, and her entire life ahead of her.

Wolf sat all but forgotten in her mind. Sure, he was still a frequent stop down Scarlet's memory lane, but most of the anguish she'd felt whenever she thought of his broad frame and course hair and soft, ragged voice had dissipated into lingering sadness.

Growing apart was what children did. Even ones who'd been through as much as they had.

She still heard about him sometimes. Saw the occasional flash of tall frame or fire green eyes in the hallways at school, or when shopping at the grocery store. But she never looked too much into it. He'd wanted her to leave him alone. She wasn't one of those clingy idiots who didn't know how to take a hint when they weren't wanted.

He wasn't always so bruised now, though, and the tiny part of Scarlet that would always care about him was relieved.

Once upon a time a boy made of stars and a girl made of fire stood together on the edge of nowhere. The girl had hoped their friendship would last from grade school to college and beyond, that they would stay close and maybe grow into something more…

But that didn't happen, and Scarlet didn't live in a fantasy.

—

She still visited their place. Went out there at dusk to watch the clouds shift and the fields shiver, and to think about all of the unexpected twists and turns her life had taken.

It was just as peaceful, just as hidden as it had been the first time she'd stumbled across it. Sometimes, she thought she could see Wolf's silhouette, slightly slouched and etched in shadow by her side.

Then, one day, the shadow became flesh and blood and bone.

He was suddenly there again.

She didn't know what to say.

She was frozen at the sight of him, afraid he would vanish if she so much as breathed. It had been almost three years.

"Wolf." It came out in a whisper.

He walked towards her, vivid green eyes as bright as she remembered, and out of nowhere his arms threw themselves around her. It could only be described as a desperate embrace. Her face pressed into his shoulder. He smelled like laundry detergent and rain.

Her hands slowly lifted up to clutch his back. She wasn't quite sure he was real. Even at their closest he'd never, ever hugged her.

Scarlet didn't realize she was shaking until he pulled away slightly, fingers still bunched in the folds of her hoodie.

They stood, just staring at each other for a second, or a minute, or a lifetime.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She couldn't bring herself to speak, and he gradually released her. His hand rose to card through his hair— it was a little long, falling over his ears and his forehead. He was nervous.

"I'm so, so sorry, Scarlet. I... there's been a lot of stuff..." He scratched the back of his head. "I know I should have talked to you."

A slight pause, as he took a long, deep sigh. "About three years ago, my brother Ran got involved with a gang in Paris. They were making him do a lot of... nasty things. Drugs. Theft. He couldn't pay for all the narcotics he was on, so they- they took my mother."

His voice broke. "I couldn't care less about Ran, Scar, but my mother... She was in the hospital for two months and I just- I lost it. I couldn't talk to anyone, and I fought because it was a distraction from her and my anger and losing you..."

"Why?" Scarlet asked, the word coming out surprisingly strong.

"Why what?" Confusion flickered across his features.

"Why are you here? Besides to apologize, which I didn't need. Why come back? Why now?"

He drew back a little. "Because I-" He seemed to catch himself. "Because I couldn't just leave you."

"But you did."

"Yeah." His voice grew soft and sad. "I did." There was a slight crease in his forehead as he grimaced, and Scarlet was aware of how much older he looked since the last time they had stood so close.

After a long silence, he let out a breath. Scarlet stiffened when he reached out and grasped the elbow of one of her sleeves, his touch warm. "Scarlet, I need to tell you something. It's been weighing on me, especially since we'll be graduating soon and- I just thought you should know."

He brought his eyes up from where they had been staring at his hand on her arm.

"When we were younger, I was always alone. It was like I lived in this dark tunnel, constantly running and hiding, and nobody even cared. But then you came along, and you- you got it. I'd come here and there you'd be and I could talk to you and make you laugh and..."

His grip on her elbow tightened. "Scarlet, I thought you must be made of magic. I'd talk to my mom about you and she'd-" He made a little noise in the back of his throat. "She'd have to remind me to stop dreaming and come back to Earth once in a while."

He looked at her, really looked at her, and she knew he was willing her to understand the frustration and desperation and something akin to wonder trapped within his gaze.

In all the clichés, this was the moment where a million thoughts were supposed to be racing through her mind; all of the lazy sunsets they'd spent together, the library lunches, the grocery store encounters. She was supposed to be caught off guard, rendered speechless by his almost-confession, but instead, she felt strangely at peace.

Everything about their relationship had always felt inevitable— their intertwined childhoods, their messy adolescences, even their rift growing into adulthood. She couldn't just forget the last three years, but as for what he was trying to say... some part of her had known. Some part of her had always known.

"You're in love with me, aren't you?" It came out in a whisper.

He ducked his head. "I don't think I can remember a time when I wasn't."

She took in his hunched shoulders, his hand which had fallen away from her elbow and was now tugging at his sleeve, his easy familiarity. Wolf was comfort. Wolf was safety. He was the boy she'd stood up for, the boy she'd joked around with, the boy she'd spent all her life wanting to be near. She wanted to hate him for vanishing on her and breaking her trust, but...

Even after trying to shut him out for three years, he was still there, blooming like a rose in her heart. They were connected. Nothing would ever really change that.

She took his hand. It felt like free-falling into something big and bold and beautiful. "Wolf?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't ever leave me again." Stepping forward, she pressed her mouth to his in a brief, light kiss. He froze, body stiffening slightly, but then he was wrapping his arms around her and drawing her closer, closer, until Scarlet was dizzy and couldn't hear anything but her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.

When they finally pulled apart, he was grinning— that awkward, all-wrong grin she hadn't even realized she'd missed so much. He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. "This doesn't mean I'm not still mad at you, though. You're going to have to do a lot of groveling to make up for those three years."

He just stared at her. "I don't care, as long as I get to be with you."

He pulled her in and kissed her again.

—

Later, they stood wrapped around each other as the last of the sun's fire winked behind the hills and the moon rose to light the dark.

She was a burning girl, and he was a boy made of stars.

They would always exist at nightfall.


End file.
